Stormy Weather
by listen-to-the-birdies-sing
Summary: Potter. Of course, this is all his fault. He probably planned on me walking down there and being soaked. No, he definately did, that's why he had the bloody umbrella.
1. Chapter 1

Cold. Cold. Cold. Cold. Cold.

There is nothing but cold.

I feel stupid. I'd agreed to meet her down at the Quidditch pitch, underneath the stands so she could tell me whatever she'd been hiding for the last few days.

I'd even agreed to meet her down there when Gryffindor Quidditch practise was on. That is how set I was on being there for her - I am risking to run into _him_.

I pull my raincoat tighter around me as I take in the surroundings. She is not here. And why would she be? She's probably back in the castle, sitting by the fire, warm as she possibly could be, while I'm down here freezing my ass off.

I take a moment to consider the fact that she might be running late, but she's always been on time - that's one of the reasons that I'd liked her so much to start with -, so I turn and begin walking back through the storm.

My hair is soaked and it's sticking to my face in ways I wish it wasn't. I probably looked like I had a moustache and beard to the people surrounding.

And then it stops. The rains just gone.

Well not _gone_. It's raining in front of me still, and on both sides. And when I can hear the spattering of it.

I groan under my breath. I know who it's going to be before I even look up.

Maybe I just shouldn't look up? Maybe I should just keep on walking and hope that he shoves off before we get too far.

But I can't stop myself from looking up, anyway.

And there he is, smiling down at me like a complete and utter git. He's carrying an umbrella, put up and everything, flying on his broom above my head to keep the rain from hitting me. "Hello, Lilikins."

I couldn't help myself. "Well, Potter, I think you've really out-done yourself this time."

"Enough to convince you to date me?"

The snort that leaves my nose is unintentional. I don't even mean to do it any more, I just have a bit of a talent for being a bitch when Potter is around. "Maybe if you weren't Potter."

He doesn't give up. I walk ten steps ahead with him hovering over me, keeping me dry and he asks me to go out with him.

I walk another ten before he does it again, and this doesn't stop until I reach the castle doors which are closed.

I push them open and step inside, shaking my bright red hair to get the cold water out of them and am about to disappear further into the castle.

"Evans?"

I look up at him and lean up against the door. "Mmm?"

"Go out with me?"

I just smile and blow him a kiss - that's more to drive him crazy than to do anything else - and shut the door behind me.


	2. Chapter 2

When I find her, she's sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room and when I walk in, she jumps up and hurries over to me with large eyes.

"Lily! Where have you been?! I've been looking for you everywhere!"

Since I got in the castle, I've been and gotten changed, but I'm still freezing to death because I haven't had a shower yet.

"Where have _I_ been, where have _you_ been?!"

She frowns slowly, and I know that she has no idea what I'm talking about. "I ... James told me he was going to tell you that I was going to meet you here. Because it's raining. And cold outside and we don't like the cold."

Potter. Of course, this is all his fault.

He probably planned on me walking down there and being soaked.

No, he definitely did, that's why he had the bloody umbrella.

Before I can storm off and go back down to the Quidditch Pitch to throw a curse his way and make him fall of his stupid gitty broom, she grabs my hand and pulls me down so I'm sitting on the lounge next to her.

"Can I stay with you, tonight?"

I know the only reason she's asking me is because she's scared that I might sneak into his room while he's sleeping a put a spell on him.

Oh, that's a good idea.

Maybe I can put his bed out the window so when he wakes up he'll be covered in snow and he won't know how he got there?

Or maybe I can make him levitate so when he wakes up, he'll freak out because he won't be on the ground, and I've learned that the only time Potter likes his feet off the ground is when he's on his broomstick.

Or maybe I can-

"Stop thinking about ways to kill him and concentrate on the here and now, Lily."

My brain rushes back to the present and I blink a few times. "I wasn't thinking about how to kill him ... I was thinking about things I could do to him while he's sleeping so when he wakes up, he'll be hanging out the window or up in the air or-"

"One day the two of you are going to get sick of trying to make each other want to die, you know?"

I chuckle, more to myself than her. "I doubt that."

"I don't, he doesn't even want to do it, you know? The only reason he's playing your stupid game is so he can spend time with you. Whether it's putting up with your stupid jokes or not."

I shrug my shoulders.

It doesn't matter if he wants to play my 'stupid' game or not, he's sucked into it now. He can't get out - he's knee high in my 'stupid' game.


	3. Chapter 3

"Rise and shine!"

He groans and rolls over, putting the pillow over his head. "EVANS!"

"Oh, James-i-poo. I'm only doing what you want. It was your idea to spend more time together, wasn't it?"

I know that this is complete torture for him, because James loves his sleep as much as I do and he's groaning like I just cut off one of his limbs. "Not at 5AM!"

I take another step towards him, so I'm only an arm length away from the bed, and smile charmingly at him. "It's 4:30, actually."

His arm comes straight up in the air and first he flips me the bird, before I have to duck to miss the pillow that's been thrown my way.

"LILY! I NEED MY SLEEP!"

Normally, I wouldn't be so stupid. I wouldn't do what I do, and sit on the edge of his bed. I normally wouldn't pull the blanket off, hoping that he'd suffer because of how cold it was.

Because I'm normally smarter than that.

But as soon as I pull his blankie off, his body covers in goosepimples and, I'm sad to admit, my mouth fills with saliva.

He's sleeping without a shirt on, his blue checkered, long pyjama pants that he's always wearing whenever he's in the Head's Dorms - whether it's one hundred degrees or minus twenty, raining or the suns shining, it's 3AM or 3PM, James will be in his long, blue checkered pyjama pants.

"LILY!"

His screaming at me like a toddler brings me back to the present and I frown, sigh and then put my hands on my hips. "Stop acting like a three-year-old. You wanted me to wake you up now so you could get ready."

He's got his face shoved into a pillow, so it's a little muffled, but between the swear-words and threats that he's sending my way, I manage to get out 'What, I, need, ready, 4AM', and I'm pretty sure that he means 'What do I need to get ready for at 4AM'.

Or that's what I take it as, anyway.

"Because it's time for you to go and wake your team up, Captain. You've got a Quidditch game on, today."

He springs out of the bed, not bothering to let me move before he bounces around me and I watch as his figure searches the room.

He needs something, but he doesn't know what he needs, and his bodies in too much shock from being woken up too early and so quickly that he stands there, turning from one wall to the other.

I have the role of waking him up when he has Quidditch games. Actually, I'd volunteered, because - although it meant that I had to wake up in order to wake him up - it was nice to see his mind struggle that early in the morning, and I got to go back to sleep afterwards, while he had to go and drag people from their beds.

Literally drag.

The Gryffindor Common Room hated James, almost as much as the Quidditch Team did. He was an absolute fanatic about Quidditch, and that meant a lot of time out of bed, flying brooms when everyone knew that they were going to win.

Ever since James had gotten Captain, two years before, they'd never lost a game. So nobody really needed to go down to the game to know who was going to win, but everyone always turned up, anyway, just so we could make bets.

When we were playing the other team, there was always those faithful idiots who were certain that they were going to win, and they always made bets. And then lost all of their money.

I want to stay and watch James struggle, because in the two minutes that my brains swept me off and I've been thinking, he's been doing the exact same thing, like every Quidditch game morning, and it always cracks me up.

But I have another role to play, and I walk out into the living room where the lounge is being occupied.

"Sirius,"

He stirs, but doesn't wake, and I sit down on the lounge next to him. "Sirius,"

"I don't want to go to school, Mrs. Potter."

The words I'd just heard broke my heart. It wasn't 'mummy', it was 'Mrs. Potter'.

"Sirius," I stroke his hair and suddenly his eyelids flutter open and he has to blink a couple of times before he realises it's me. "You have a Quidditch game. It's quater-to-five. James is in his room confused, not moving like every Quidditch game. And I'm going to make you a cup of coffee while you wake up."

Sirius shoots me a lop-sided grin, the same grin that I'd seen a million times on his best buddy James, and as I walk away, he calls out about how much he loves me.

When they leave, I make sure they're definately gone before I crawl into James' bed and snuggle into his pillows.

It's kind of a ritual of mine, since I know that they'll be gone until his alarm goes, an hour before the Quidditch game - for normal school - and I have enough time to get up and get ready.

I pull his blankie up to my chin and puff up the pillow underneath my head, hugging his other pillow to my chest so it doesn't feel like I'm alone.

I doze off, getting swept into an ocean wave of darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

** :**

He can't believe it.

He forgot his broomstick.

What kind of an idiot forgets his broomstick on the day of a Quidditch match?

He makes it to the Gryffindor Common Room before he realises this.

He was standing in his room, trying to figure out what he couldn't remember since the morning was too early and the temperature was too cold.

Sirius offers to go back and get it, but James knows that Sirius stomps when it's early in the morning and he's tired, and he knows if he returns he'll wake Lily up.

And Lily's already done enough this morning, she doesn't need to be woken up before she actually has to.

But she won't let him down - she'll be at the game, definately.

Even though it's his own private ritual, he tells Sirius to go ahead and get the players up, because it's worth breaking a ritual in his last year if it means Lily doesn't suffer.

That's how much he loves her, and she still doesn't believe it.

She still doesn't believe that he's loved her ever since the day he saw her.

He can't really remember walking back to the Head's Dorms, but he somehow got there and through the portrait without causing too much noise.

The door to her bedroom is shut, his only open by a crack as wide as his fist, and he hopes that he can make it to his bedroom, get the broomstick, and go before he made too much noise and woke her up.

He's in the corner of his room before he hears it.

It's just a soft noise, but it's enough to tell him that he's not alone and he spins around, grabbing his wand out to point at the intruder at the same time.

And then his eyes lean on her.

She's laying there, in his bed, curled up in a little ball with his pillow pressed to her front, as if she was imagining him laying with her.

A smile appears on his lips as he reaches behind him and grabs the broomstick.

But he can't help himself. It may be the only chance he's ever going to get.

He bends down and kisses her forehead before he leaves, grateful that she doesn't stir or wake up.

She doesn't do anything, but lay there and look perfect, as always, in his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

People don't get one thing; I don't mind Remus. I don't mind Sirius. And I don't mind- Well, no, actually, I don't like Peter.

I think he's a little bit mean on the inside, and he tries to blame other people for the things that he does, where as Sirius, Remus and James take responsability for their actions. I'm not saying that makes their actions better in the first place, but Peter always finds some way out of the blame and that drives me crazy.

"Hey, Lily."

Remus takes a seat next to me, Peter trailing closely behind him, as the announcer yells into the microphone that the game will start in about five minutes.

I don't know who's in charge of the microphone, today, but she goes into how hot James is and I feel like going over there and bashing her face in with the book that I have in my lap.

Does she not have any taste?

"Remus!"

My arms are wrapped around his neck before he even gets a chance to realise what's going on, and I hold onto him for a second, until he wraps his arms around my waist.

"Glad to see someone's so excited to see me."

I pretend not to notice the hidden message behind his words. Ruby is sitting next to me, looking at the Quidditch Pitch, pretending that she hasn't even noticed Remus getting there.

And I choose to bud into the conversation, because I know that it's the right thing to do. Just because they're fighting, it doesn't mean that I can't try to make it better, does it? "Rubes?"

She looks to me and blinks a few times, "Mmm?"

"Have you seen who just got here?"

She smiles politely - a fake smile, I know - and leans past me to look.

And as soon as I think we're making way, that they're getting back on track because they're talking again, and that's the first step to recovery, she has to stuff up. "Hello, Peter, it's nice to see you."

I turn back to Remus and shoot him a sympathetic look, and he tries to give me a reassuring smile, but I can see the pain in his eyes and I have to turn away before it all becomes too much.

When the game starts and the Gryffindor team comes on, the Slytherins on the other side of the stand start booing loudly, but the Gryffindors start screaming and cheering like we'd just scored, and drown them out in a matter of moments.

When James turns to look at me, Remus waves and I put my head on his shoulder.

Cheap shot, trying to make him jealous with one of his best friends, but he shakes his head and I know I've hit him.

Remus knows what I'm doing. He knows, just like he knows everything else. He leans down and whispers in my ear. "Are you sure it's not _your_ relationship that we need to fix?"

In answer to his question, I decide to ignore him, too.


	6. Chapter 6

Surprise, surprise, we won the game.

But, like every time we win, James is running around screaming like we've never won anything ... or like it's the grand cup.

I can't help but smile at the git as he throws his hands up in the air and flips the captain of the Slytherin team off, who returns the gesture, but for some reason he doesn't have the jaw-cracking grin that James has.

He turns around and his eyes search the stands until he finds me.

When he pin-points me, he signals for me to go down, and I frown.

Does he mean me or Remus? I can't tell.

No, he means Remus. Remus, who's friends with everyone in the team, since Remus can actually ride a broom and he _chose_ not to be in the team because he was more concerned about focusing on his school work.

On the other hand, when I even came close to a broomstick I fell flat on my arse.

"Remus! Lily!"

Both of us? Both of us ... great.

I don't know why I don't want to let him down, when I get to my feet and start travelling down to the pitch.

I don't know why the feeling of relief floods through me when I realise that he's talking to the both of us.

There's something wrong with me, I'm getting sick.

Because I'm actually- I don't know how I can even say it without gagging...

I'm actually _smiling_ at James Potter.


	7. Chapter 7

Ruby's trying not to yell at me.

She's trying to keep calm, but it's not really working all that well because she's shaking and every few words her voice is raising higher in decibals.

"You can't be friends with the both of us, Lily."

Did that really just come out of her mouth?

I'm finding it really hard not to burst out into a fit of giggles and ask her if she's serious.

What is she, in third grade?

James walks in through the portrait, takes one look at the scene, and hurries off into his bedroom without a word.

_Thanks a lot, friend_. I think, more to myself than to him.

And then I chastise myself. James- POTTER. Potter is NOT my friend. He is the enemy. The evil one. The one who flies a broom over my head in rainstorms to keep me dry, just so he can have an excuse to talk to me.

He's the one who ruined my friendship with Severus - although it musn't have been the best friendship if it had ruined so easily and he'd said something so horrid.

The stupid git still wouldn't look at me when I passed him in the hallways. He'd stare down at his stupid shoes like there was something wrong with them, when we both know that he polishes them way too often for anybody to believe that he's not into men.

"Lily, come back to planet earth."

I blink and come back into my body.

I get swept off into my thoughts way too often. I'm so retarded, I honestly don't even know what's wrong with me.

"Are you serious? About not being able to be friends with Remus if I'm friends with you?"

She nods her head slowly. "It's starting to get too difficult, being around you since you're always around him."

I want to scream out that I haven't been with Remus once since they broke up. Apart from the times that he'd turned up with James, Sirius and Peter to our dorms and had broken into my room to tickle me to death while I was trying to sleep.

And she was never there at that time, to my knowledge.

In fact, the first time that Remus had hung out with me since their break-up was at the stupid Quidditch game, and she has the nerve to-

"We don't hang out with Remus, Rubes."

She shrugs her shoulders slowly. "I don't want you to be friends with him if you're friends with me-"

"I'm not going to give up my friendship with someone else just to keep it with you."

She throws her hands up in the air, and I know she's looking at me like I'm crazy. Like I've done something completely wrong. "I'm your best friend!"

"And as my best friend, you should understand that I'm not willing to get rid of a friend, just so I can keep one. A real best friend wouldn't ask me to do that!"

I don't know when we'd started to yell at each other.

"Well I'm sorry you feel like that!"

I pout slightly. "I'm sorry you feel like that, too."

"So that's it, than?"

I don't know what comes over me, but suddenly I know. I know that she's not my best friend, because I'd been right, a best friend - a real friend - wouldn't ask you to get rid of someone else important in your life. They'd suck it up and try to see the good side of it. They wouldn't knowingly hurt you.

"You know your way out."

She gives me her perfected 'Are-You-Crazy' look and stomps out, slamming the door behind her.

I don't know how long it is until James comes out of his room, but as soon as he comes over and puts his hand on my arm, he asks me if I'm okay and I break down.

"I think I- I just lost my best friend."

The hysterical sobbing starts, and I don't know what I'm doing.

I can't be held accountable for my actions. It's my hormones! Yepp. Wait, do hormones even have anything to do with your tears? Urgh, I don't know.

James is taken as surprised as I am when I leap into his arms and bury my head in his chest. His rock hard, ab-filled chest.

He stands there awkwardly for a little while until he bends down.

I can't do anything but cry while he puts his hands under my leg and pulls up.

I wrap my arms around his neck as he starts walking, not bothering to look where we were going until the smell of my room surrounded us.

He sits down on my bed, sits behind me, and pulls me up against him so I'm facing towards him, sitting inbetween his legs, with my head on his chest while he strokes my face.

I don't know why I let him do it.

We're acting coupley.

We don't act coupley.

But for a moment, I stop sobbing, and I ask myself 'would it be so bad if I had this as an actual relationship?', and that only makes me sob harder.


	8. Chapter 8

James and I haven't mentioned the day I cried into his chest and he ended up in my bed, holding me, since it happened.

But I know he's thinking about it, from the way he's staring at me.

Usually, he would have gone out by now. He would be over at the lake with Remus, Sirius and Peter.

But not today.

Today he's sitting on the chair across from me, watching me while I'm reading a book.

Not a book for an essay, but a book for individual reading, because that's what makes me happy.

"You're staring at me."

He chuckles. A warm, happy sound that spreads joy through my body, which I quickly kick away. "I know."

I don't want to know, but I ask anyway, since I already know the answer. "Are you going to stop staring at me?"

"I didn't plan on it."

I snap my book shut and put it down on the coffee table before I look up at him and blink slowly.

I don't say a word, just keep looking at him like there's nothing going on, like I don't want to do anything but stare at him.

Not that I can say that isn't the case.

His calloused hands from Quidditch are rubbing together, he doesn't have a shirt on so his abs are visable, and he's wearing those sexy blue checkered pyjama pants.

I think he knows that I love them.

No, he definately knows that I love them, because he wouldn't be wearing them so much if he didn't.

"Lily?"

I smile. "Yes?"

"You're staring at me."

I chuckle. This is going to go exactly the same way that my attempt had gone, and I know it won't change a thing, but I still keep going anyway. "I know."

He pauses for a moment, and then catches on and he puts a hand up to his face, leaning against it.

Is he trying to do an impression of me?

With his spare hands he pretends to twirl a curl with his pointer finger, and he opens his eyes as wide as they can go, which I think is slightly a compliment, despite his impression of me being a bimbo. "Are you going to stop staring at me?"

Since he's doing such a good job of impressioning me, I slob down in my chair and put my feet up on the coffee table, glad that he hadn't gotten a flash of my underwear, since it had been a pretty close call and I try not to blush. "I didn't plan on it."

We both burst out into a fit of laughter, and even though I realise that I'm actually laughing with James bloody Potter, I don't stop.

Because for once, it's alright.


	9. Chapter 9

Ruby and I still haven't talked, but that's alright because I'm spending all of my time focused on my studies.

James and I have come up with a new routine so that we don't keep having to fight for the bathroom in the morning.

I get up, have a shower, go and wake him up, he gets in and has a shower while I do my hair and get dressed.

Then he gets out of the shower, gets dressed, I give him the coffee that I've made for him while he's getting dressed and we drink out of our mugs while we walk down to breakfast together.

It's the same every day. We leave at the same time, every morning, since he's knows I'm a bit of a fanatic about being on time, and he never lets me down.

I can feel her giving me filthy looks whenever I walk past the spot on the table where she's decided she wants to sit, and I always stop the tears from forming while James looks back and calls her a bitch.

That's the same every morning, too.


	10. Chapter 10

Sirius has decided that crashing on our couch is going to be a new normality for him.

I'm not against the idea. I'm not against the idea, itself, at all.

Because I love Sirius, and everyone knows I love Sirius.

He's funny and he's a great person, and most of the time, the jokes and practical jokes that he plays on me actually get a laugh out of me.

But I don't like the fact that he's falling asleep on our lounge, every night, because that means I don't get to spend time with James.

And the fact that that annoys me, well that annoys me.

I don't want to be annoyed about not being able to spend time with James. I want to be overjoyed, like I would have been two months before at the Quidditch game, but I can't.

Because James and I are friends ...

Well I think that we're friends.

But the only time that we're really friends is when we're alone in our apartment.

I'd known it had been a long shot, but I'd actually convinced Dumbledore to get us a Muggle television and some Muggle movies that we both enjoyed.

He enchanted them so they worked in the Castle, and James and I enjoy sitting in front of the fire, watching the screen that was on the coffee table.

I'd sit against him and he'd stroke my back, but we never did anything in front of other people.

Not even Sirius.

We don't hug, we don't touch hands, we don't touch any part of our bodies together, in front of other people.

We don't even speak much.

Although people have gotten used to the idea of us walking to breakfast together, I know that if we turn up tomorrow and I give him a hug goodbye before classes, a whole new bag of rumours will be out by lunch time.

"You need to get out."

I look up at James, alarmed, but then I realise that he's not talking to me at all and that he's facing Sirius.

"W-What?" he sputters.

James shrugs his shoulders. "I'm sorry, mate, but I need you to cover Quidditch practise this afternoon."

James leads Sirius to believe that he's doing Sirius a favour, since it was known to everyone that Sirius wanted to be Captain - just for a day, apparently - so James was giving him his chance.

"Make me proud, bro."

Sirius is out of the apartment, literally running, down to the Quidditch pitch.

When we look out of my bedroom window, he's still running, broomstick in hand, and neither of us can hold in our laughter.

"Did you really want to give him his dream?"

He scoffs and I start walking out. Even though we're friends, I still feel a little uncomfortable being in my room, near my bed where I'd cried to him, with James.

He puts his hands around my waist as we go through my bedroom door and out into the living area. "No ... I just wanted a day to be us."

When we sit down on the lounge, he puts his arm around my shoulders and I snuggle into his side. "Thank you."

He shoots me a lop-sided grin before I turn the television on and put in _Breakfast At Tiffany's_.


End file.
